As from September 2023, independent schools have been inspected on a new framework that focuses on whether schools have met the Independent Schools’ Standards, as laid out by the Department for Education. They inspect standards in five key areas:

• Leadership and management, and governance
• Pupils’ education, training and recreation
• Pupils’ physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing
• Pupils’ social and economic wellbeing, and contribution to society
• Safeguarding

There are no qualitative judgements in the new inspection regime, there is simply a possible judgement of ‘met’ or ‘not met’ for each of the areas above. We are delighted, therefore, that following their inspection in March 2024, the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) found Davenies to have met all of the standards; the inspection outcomes could not have been better.

The inspectorate reported widely on the pupils’ academic and personal development, and their progress in all areas, as well as the contribution of the breadth of our curriculum, the quality of teaching, the quality of pastoral care and our welfare and health and safety principles, stating: ‘The broad curriculum and wide-ranging co-curricular and extra-curricular programmes, encourage the development of pupils’ self-knowledge, self-esteem and confidence.’